Westward, Ho! Watching 'The West Wing,' Season 1

In a US election year, it’s appropriate to feel a bit nostalgic for my homeland, messed up as it kinda seems to be these days. As the plastic Romney and the arrogant gargoyle Gingrich tear each other to shreds in the Republican primaries, I kind of pine for a simpler time. A “West Wing” time.

As a big presidential history buff, I watched “The West Wing” a lot when it first started on TV in 1999, and quite liked it. Yet for some reason I drifted away from paying attention to the show in the Bush years, perhaps too depressed by the real man in the White House to watch stories about the fake one. But since I finished my “Buffy/Angel” TV travels, I was looking around for something else to dig into on my TV-on-DVD time. “The West Wing” was a good candidate to gradually revisit, season by season. It was an Emmy-winning machine back in the day, but how does it stack up now?

And watching Season 1 in 2012 instead of 1999 is quite interesting. It’s a dynamic, beautifully-produced series, given punch by creator Aaron Sorkin’s now-trademark constant babble of ideas and pithy dialogue. It’s hopelessly idealistic yet not quite starry-eyed enough to just be seen as a liberal wish list. The show hasn't dated badly, other than not really referencing the Internet age, and many of the issues - gays in the military, abortion, the Middle East - remain key today. Its fictional President Josiah Bartlet (a never-better Martin Sheen), an intellectual, well-meaning liberal who has problems connecting with Middle America, is a startling doppelganger for our own President Obama. Bartlet is a heck of a lot more like Obama than he is Bush or Clinton. The parallels came often for me, right down to Bartlet being a bit of an egghead who likes to show off his knowledge, or a “transformative” sort of President who languishes in the polls.

“The West Wing” is quintessential comfort television, breezy somehow even at its most emotional, and Season 1 is all about meeting the cast of characters in the Bartlet administration and their 25-hour-a-day lives. When it gets super-political, the show doesn’t always work, and definitely leans to the left. The show is most successful in how it portrays the always-on West Wing, with its constant bustle and characters who devote their entire life to their job.

Sheen’s Bartlet is a wonderful creation, by turns cranky and messianic, forgetful and omnipotent, yet always strangely reassuring. Sorkin and crew don’t make President Bartlet flawless, and in fact he often comes off downright arrogant as in “A Proportional Response,” when grief makes the president genocidal. Sheen gives a fantastic performance, which rightly dominates the room, and it’s hard to imagine that the character of the President wasn’t originally intended to be quite so central in the series.

There are quite a few clunky bits in season 1, and it takes a while to find its tone – Sam Seaborn’s awkward relationship with a prostitute, or consultant Mandy (Moira Kelly), who is such a screechingly annoying character that it’s a pleasure to see her gradually written out into oblivion. While the interracial relationship between Barlet’s daughter Zoey and his black aide Charlie provides lots of plot fodder, it never seems convincing (when does anyone in this White House have time to date anyway?).

But although the show can get dark, it’s also often very, very funny. Allison Janney’s lovely CJ Cregg and Bradley Whitford’s wise-ass Josh Lyman deliver most of the humour. In its first season, “The West Wing” reflects America, but it’s a far more charming and engaging entertainment than the constant partisan battles in real-life Washington are these days.

The Angel-a-Thon: Season 5, the grand finale

OK, it was actually a few months ago now I finished my noble goal of watching all of Joss Whedon’s “Angel” and “Buffy” series, a whopping total of 254 episodes of vampire-stabbin’ good television. I wrapped it up with the final episode of the fifth season of “Angel,” “Not Fade Away.”

After the stumble that was the confused Season 4, the final season shakes up everything and goes in several new directions. At the end of the fourth season, Angel and his friends were put in charge of their longtime enemies, evil law firm Wolfram and Hart. The entire season is basically a meaty moral dilemma for Angel and co. – if you join the bad guys, work for the bad guys, doesn’t that make you a bad guy yourself? Angel, Wesley, Fred and the rest are determined to try and turn Wolfram and Hart into a force for good, but easier said than done.

For me, much of the enjoyment of Season 5 comes from totally changing the status quo. No more dank hotel and “vampire detective,” hello heavily funded mysterious corporation and deals with the devil. Some longtime “Angel” fans squawked about this season, but it’s a natural progression for Angel’s ever-shifting moral compass. It’s also a pleasure to see Buffy’s Spike, played by snarky James Marsters, join the cast. His cocky cockney schtick may be getting a wee bit tired after so long, but it adds a nice jolt of energy to the cast.

The pathos of Season 5 echo the show’s best year, Season 3 – there’s a ton of tragedy here, from the fate of poor Fred and Wesley to Gunn’s metamorphosis from street tough to silver-tongued lawyer. A real appeal for “Angel” is how everyone constantly changes, and you honestly feel that characters can die at any time – and often do. The show did get its legs cut out from under it a bit with the open-ended finale cliffhanger (which has been followed up in an OK fashion in comic books). Yet “Not Fade Away” ends in a spectacular, damn-the-torpedoes fashion, with the final battle to top all the final battles to date and some shocking turns.

Best episode: Several to choose from, including “Not Fade Away” and Cordelia’s bittersweet swan song on “You’re Welcome” – but for sheer quirkiness and a welcome blast of humour on a dark season, you can’t go wrong with “Smile Time,” the one where Angel is transformed into a deranged vampire Muppet. Awesome.

The Angel-a-Thon: Season 4

It’s hard to top a peak. The third series of “Angel” was such a taut, exciting ride that season four had a lot to live up to. And while it’s rarely rotten, Angel’s penultimate series falls a bit short.

There’s great momentum at the start of this season, as the cliffhangers of Series 3 are wrapped up and the apocalyptic Beast comes to town, raining fire on the streets and blocking out the sun. There’s a real sense of danger and drama in these early episodes – the Beast is by far the most inhuman villain the series has had, and it really seems nothing can stop him. The various psychodramas continue as Angel bonds and brawls with his bad-boy, instantly teenaged son Connor, Wesley works his way back from his dark exile into redemption (it’s amazing what a bad-ass Alexis Denisof has become as Wesley, especially when you view his first few appearances way back in “Buffy”’s third season), while Fred and Gunn wind down their increasingly annoying relationship.

But then it all kind of turns to custard. The writers apparently feel they have to keep one-upping the threat level, and so the Beast turns out to be a pawn of a now-evil Cordelia, who turns out to be yet ANOTHER pawn of the smiling goddess Jasmine. Really, the Beast could’ve been a solid enough protagonist to fuel the entire season, and the ridiculously labyrinthine plot by Jasmine is insulting to viewers (apparently pretty much everything that ever happened since episode one has been a part of the plan). But the worst misstep is how the writers abuse poor Cordelia, who’d shown the most fascinating growth as a character over the first 3 years, moving from selfish diva to selfless heroine. Her “ascension” at the end of the third season was tearjerking and yet very right.

But it’s all dumped on this year, as Cordy’s forced into an icky affair with Connor, gotten pregnant, turns evil, then is clumsily just written out of the series entirely. It’s a real shame that poor Charisma Carpenter goes out on such an awkward note (although fortunately, she has a better swan song in Season 5). Jasmine, played by “Firefly” star Gina Torres, is a character with potential – an ancient god who is bringing enforced world peace – but she never quite comes across right.

There’s still a lot to like in series 4 – we get the return of Angel’s evil alter ego Angelus, who’s sinister fun, and a guest appearance by Faith (Eliza Dushku) always provides a lot of energy. There's lots of great moments, but the meandering of the overall season storyline and the egregious waste of Cordelia do spoil it all a bit.

Best episode: In a season filled with dark twists and turns, it’s the lighthearted change of pace episode “Spin The Bottle” that provides some much-needed levity, and a chance for the cast to show how much the characters have grown. While the “everyone gets amnesia” plot is beyond cliché, it’s played out in a very fun fashion as we witness the return of bitchy high-school Cordelia, foppish Wesley and medieval young Angel and everyone bounces off each other in a nice locked-room mystery. It's a good showcase for the actors and just nice to get a break from the never-ending apocalypses. Runner-up: “Home,” the energetic season finale, which delivers a much-needed change of setting and mission for Season 5 and gives the entire mauldin, overlong Connor storyline a fitting, bittersweet sendoff.

The Angel-A-Thon: Season 3

In “Angel” Season 3, the vampire-detective show manages to get even darker, if that’s possible. You could measure the torment and angst on screen in some of these episodes by the gallon. Yet at the same time, this is the season “Angel” really gels and the characters form a real “family” of outcasts and freaks – which makes it all the more painful when bad things keep happening to them.
 
This season Angel Investigations continue to grow – the nervous Fred joins the team, while Gunn and the demon Lorne both also become full-time cast members. Fred’s a strange addition at first, and I felt Amy Acker overplays the whole “naïve country girl with an accent” schtick. But she becomes an enjoyable cast member, although I couldn't ever buy into the idea that her and Gunn would have a relationship – they never make a plausible couple.  I also really loved the changes Wesley went through this year, completing the transformation from tweedy geek in his early “Buffy” appearances into a grim, haunted and authoritative figure. (Alexis Denisof proves himself a pretty solid actor this season.)
 
But the big ongoing story this season is the tale of Darla, Angel’s evil ex, and her pregnancy and the surprise child she delivers.  It’s a great tragic soap opera storyline, complete with a resurrected ancient foe of Angel’s, Holtz. Holtz, wonderfully played by Keith Szarabajka, was a vampire hunter 200 years ago whose entire family was slaughtered by the evil Angelus. Brought back to life to continue his hunt for Angel, Holtz is a fascinating character – seething with righteous rage over Angel’s past deeds. The whole Darla/Holtz plot comes to a great conclusion as Angel’s son is born – then through one of those magic/timey-wimey things, ends up a few episodes later as a scowling Pete from “Mad Men.” The grown Connor and his fractious relationship with his father give “Angel” another surge of energy as the third season comes to a close.

This season is the best yet, as it tangles fatherhood, guilt, love, and vengeance into one boiling mass of emotions and twists. I’d have to say this year is when the spinoff becomes as good as the parent show “Buffy” was at its peak. It’s a tribute to the skill of the actors and writers that the show doesn’t drown in its own bleak plotlines. Just enough humour and action are used to break up the gloomy bits.
 
Best episode: There’s several great ones this year, but I have to go with “Sleep Tight,” about as tense an episode “Angel” has produced, with Angel’s baby son becoming a football passed between a variety of players. Wesley’s betrayal of the team is startling, but what’s even more gripping is how horribly his behaviour damages the bond between the friends of Angel Investigations – the easy camaraderie between the gang is broken, and the fallout from this episode lingers through the rest of this season and into Season 4. The shocking finale of this episode, where Angel loses Connor and Holtz, seemingly forever, is a gut-blow to the viewer. (Runner-up status to the season finale "Tomorrow" which has a great cliff-hanger ending -- one character sinking into the sea, one ascending to higher realms.)

The Angel-A-Thon: Season 2

Here we go again, as I slowly continue my bloody plunge through all seven seasons of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" and now into the five seasons of the spin-off "Angel."
 
As we enter season 2, Los Angeles' vampire detective Angel and his allies in the fight against darkness battle evil on a variety of fronts -- most notably the resurrected Darla, Angel's former lover and his vampire "maker," a plot line that drives throughout the season.

Season 2, I thought, was a lot more consistent and enjoyable than the sometimes stumbling first season was. We feel that Angel Investigations has become more of a family, and that makes the ups and downs the "team" has this year feel more effective.
 
It's also good to see the characters grow and change -- Cordelia becomes far more responsible than the conceited teen she was on "Buffy," while Wesley shows new inner strength as he becomes the leader of Angel investigations. A couple of newcomers join the cast too -- former anti-vampire gang leader Gunn and the delightful Andy Hallett as Lorne the Host, who tends to steal pretty much every scene he's in.

I also really enjoy Julia Benz' nasty, scheming take on Darla, a far cry from her sweet and charming wife on "Dexter." Angel's tug of war with Darla continues throughout most of the season, although some of the episodes get a bit repetitive with the whole cat-and-mouse game.
 
While there's a lot of darkness in this series of "Angel" it's leavened by some goofy humour as well. The season finale series of episodes set in Lorne's home dimension of Pylea are an often-silly treat, kind of "Angel" goes "Army of Darkness.".
 
Best episode: There's a lot to pick from this season, but "Reunion" takes the Darla/Angel/Wolfram and Hart triangle to a new height, climaxing with the stunning scene where Angel basically lets Darla and fellow vamp Drusilla kill off most of the law firm. It's a good showcase for Angel's dark side (which is talked about a lot, but sometimes doesn't seem very convincing), and takes the story in genuinely surprising new directions.
 

The Angel-A-Thon: Season 1, And So It Begins

So a while back, over the course of a couple years, the wife and I whipped through all seven seasons, 144 episodes of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" , which I regularly blogged about in progress reports. How on earth to follow all that vampire-staking action up? With the spin-off showcase "Angel," which ran from 1999-2004 featuring everyone's favorite antihero vampire-with-a-soul.

I was actually rather hesitant to dive into the whole five seasons of "Angel," because spin-off shows rarely reach the heights of their parent. And for about the first half of this series, "Angel" kind of felt like a show trying to figure out what it wants to be. After having left Sunnydale and a broken-hearted Buffy, Angel heads to Los Angeles and sets up shop as a kind of supernatural private detective -- basically, he's vampire Batman. Whiny "Buffy" castmate Cordelia comes aboard as his secretary/damsel in distress, and a mysterious wisecracking guy named Doyle joins the show as they amble about various supernatural adventures.

While entertaining, the early episodes kind of fall into a rut and too often the show doesn't really seem sure where it's going. The gothic rock'n'roll video slash-cut editing style sometimes gets annoying, too. I also have one pet peeve -- wayyyyy too much of Angel strutting about in broad daylight, which spoils the whole vampire mystique thing. I don't care if he's not in direct sunlight, if he's in a brightly lit office, it just ain't... vampirey.

Soon, though, dreary Doyle is killed off (a good move, as the whole dark brooding guy with a secret role was already filled by Angel) and ex-Watcher Wesley (a very solid Alexis Denisof) joins the team. The show needed a "Giles" sort of character, the know-it-all geek with courage, and Wesley and Cordelia provide much-needed comic relief to the show's generally dark demon doings. I also enjoyed the cynical policewoman character Kate, although she starts to move into the background after a couple of appearances. By the end of season one and a few really entertaining episodes featuring the demonic law firm Wolfram and Hart, "Angel" seems a much more focused show than it started off as.

Best episode: Is it a bit of a cheat that my favorite episodes of this series featured guest appearances by "Buffy" characters? Well, either way, episode 8, "I Will Remember You," is a great piece of romantic melodrama when Angel is "cured" of his vampirism, Buffy shows up for a little romantic tango, and in the end Angel has to make a rather tragic decision. The Buffy/Angel thing has been run into the ground, but this episode still packs a nice sting. Honorable mention: the two-parter featuring another "Buffy" character, Eliza Dushku's rogue slayer Faith.

Into the TARDIS with two Doctor Whos

I've been to several big old American comic-book conventions like the ChicagoCon, so really, compared to them, New Zealand's Armageddon Expo is rather small. But it's still a decent size and a lot of fun to while away a day at -- a couple of hundred booths of stuff for sale and show, celebrity guests, tons of bizarre costumes to gawk at and the usual kind of overcrowded, sweaty, adrenaline-filled rush of stimuli you get at conventions.

But the big draw for me this time was the chance to see TWO former Doctor Whos appear -- the "seventh Doctor," Sylvester McCoy, and the little-known "eighth Doctor," who only appeared in one 1996 TV movie, Paul McGann. Both appeared for photos etc as well as in panels. I always find these kind of panels quite fascinating, a bit of a peek behind the curtain at what an actor's life is really like. They have to put up with a lot of inane fans, but I appreciate it when an actor takes the time to talk to the crowd. McCoy played the seasoned old showman/raconteur, rambling off into oddball and amusing stories about shoving ferrets down his pants in his circus days (I kid you not). He's had a long and varied career (and is apparently going to play a role in "The Hobbit" movies if they even actually get made) and was quite comfortable playing to the crowd.

McGann was a bit more wistful and down-to-earth (and I think jet-lagged). I've just watched the 1990s "Doctor Who" movie he was in, and while it was a mixed bag story-wise, I really liked McGann's portrayal of the Doctor, half Victorian dandy, half imperious alien. It's a shame he didn't get to play the Doctor more (although he has done a ton of audio-only adventures.) McGann isn't a household name but he's been in some good stuff, notably as the "I" in the Brit cult classic movie "Withnail And I," and he also waxed rhapsodic about his appearance in, er, lower-brow flicks such as "Lesbian Vampire Killers." He seemed like a good bloke, basically, and both he and McCoy had a lot of fun geek tidbits into "Dr. Who" history which I found fascinating, as a relatively novice Who-vian who really only got into the show starting with the new 2005 series. (McGann mentioned that during the casting for the 1990s "Doctor Who" would-be revival, one actor's name came up repeatedly for the part of the Doctor -- Monty Python's Eric Idle. While I do love the Python, I suspect that would've been a bizarre misstep indeed.)

Here's a story, of a lovely lady...

In truth, I spent far, far too much of my childhood watching reruns of "The Brady Bunch."

I saw every one of the 117 episodes of "The Brady Bunch" in afternoon reruns as a kid, some of them many times over. The shows were only a few years old at this point, and in constant rotation on TV. Greg Brady's dubious fashion choices, Marcia's hotness and Mike Brady's stern but loving paternal tone were all hardwired into my brain, paisley patterns on a growing mind.

The other weekend, I discovered a cheap DVD clearance sale where I could buy the full season sets of "The Brady Bunch" for just $9 each. I went a little bit mad, visions of polyester '70s childhood recaptured in my head. And I imagined indoctrinating young Peter -- not named after the middle Brady boy, honest -- into "Brady" fandom. (He loves "The Simpsons," and I do too, but frankly sometimes we think he could use a little more wholesome family sitcom role-modeling than Homer and Bart.)

I still think, 40 years (egad) after it premiered, "The Brady Bunch" stands up in my mind as the archetypal cuddly sitcom. I don't profess it to be an objectively "good" show. But it has a warmth and sincerity despite the hackneyed sitcom plotlines (Bradys go camping! Bradys clean attic! Bradys go Hawaii!). The kids always seemed more real than the wisecracking automatons on sitcoms such as "Differ'nt Strokes," and Mike and Carol Brady portrayed a truly loving couple -- a blended marriage --- that modeled the kind of behavior most of us would like parents to be. The only truly false note is wacky Alice the housekeeper, who now seems vaguely creepy with her constant passive-aggressive wisecracks about her love life.

I was always rather fond of the Brady home layout. Was a fictional television sitcom location ever better delineated? The Brady bunch house has inspired a host of fetishists (including blueprints for it). The house felt lived-in, kitschy to the max, of course. What was the deal with the hideous clown painting on the boys' bedroom wall, or the astroturf lawn, or the strangely mod and cavernous haunt that was Mike's den? Was there really only one bathroom?

While it wasn't part of the hard-hitting, "relevant" wave of '70s TV shows that included "M*A*S*H" and "All In The Family," the Bradys were a gentle step beyond one-dimensional "Leave It To Beaver" and "My Three Sons" type families. Sure, Greg getting caught smoking was about as harsh as it got, but I don't know, "The Brady Bunch" never felt quite as fake as plastic as so many sitcoms to me. Or perhaps it was so ridiculously plastic that I embraced it anyway. Or maybe it's just because I grew up on Brady afternoons, a half-hour of gently moralistic hijinks several days a week, and anything you grew up looks good with enough hindsight.

Whatever the answer, re-watching these episodes in recent weeks has been a jolly good time. And my Peter? He loves 'em too. Groovy.

The answer is the question is the answer

It's been our Wednesday night ritual now for the last six years to watch "Lost," and see where the twists and turns take us next. Now that it's in its final year, I honestly admit I have no idea where this show will end up. It started off as a "when will the castaways be rescued" drama, but that rescue ended up happening in Season 3. Now, it's some kind of time-travelly science fiction existential mythological epic that appears to be, in its last weeks, shaping up into a clash between good and evil god-figures. Not quite what one first expected when Oceanic Flight 815 went down!

The byzantine path the show has taken in the last six years is breathtaking. The closest comparisons to a TV show that I can make is "The Prisoner," or "Twin Peaks" but unlike those shows, which were elliptical and surreal from the start, "Lost" has gradually spun its web into something vast, mythological and occasionally overwrought (any time the series focuses too long on cliched Kate, the "hot girl led astray," for instance). In Series 6, "Lost" keeps spiraling its fractal story outwards, making you wonder how it can possibly all come together at the end in a few months. (We're a couple of weeks behind the show as it airs in the US, so no spoilers please!)

One big theme of "Lost" seems to be that nobody is quite what they seem. Jack, the ostensible "hero" of the show, has turned out to be frequently bungling, easily unmanned and troubled. Sawyer, the loveable rogue, has become the show's angry but steely man of action, while the most compelling character arc has been the one-time villain Ben's gradual redemption. Which might not pan out, of course.

But is there a more fascinating character than the one who I think is the real focus of the series -- poor doomed, then resurrected John Locke. Locke is the man of constantly shattered faith, the endlessly questing philosopher who is always being proved wrong. Locke's dogged search for the answers and the heartbreaking end of this quest is by far "Lost's" most interesting storyline, I think. And in Series 6, it's taken a twist by the resurrection of "John Locke," now host to the mysterious adversary, Jacob's enemy, who appears to be the "main" villain of the series. Or is he a villain? Terry O'Quinn has been great throughout the series as Locke, who swings between clenched confidence and abject misery. Now, as "Not-Locke," O'Quinn makes an absolutely fascinating focus for "Lost's" endless twists. I don't know if the "real" John Locke will return or not -- dead doesn't always mean dead -- but even if he doesn't, John Locke's quest for meaning neatly sums up "Lost."

It's still a wild ride, even if several times an episode the wife and I have to turn to each other and say things like "who's that again?" and "where was Jin last time we saw him?" "Lost" has woven such a tangled web that I feel like I'll have to read some of the inevitable "Guide to Lost" books that will come out once the series concludes.

There will be those who inevitably complain that we didn't get all of the "answers" when "Lost" ends. I would say that a huge part of the story has actually become clear this year. But you know, even if every dangling subplot isn't resolved, I'm enjoying the questions just as much.

You know you live in a really small country when....

...The fact your nation's leader got five minutes of passing face time with the American president, all of it at crowds in various formal functions relating to the UN and G-20 summits, is front page news. It's definitely a different perspective (although I don't know if I'd agree it's just "cultural cringe" or rather the fact that NZ doesn't get a lot of attention from the US on the global stage).

But on the other hand Prime Minister John Key also got to go on the David Letterman show and be gently poked fun at in front of millions:

Really, Obama or Letterman, it's all publicity for down under and at least Dave didn't make Key wear a hobbit costume or something. Key was funny enough, I thought, and I have to admit while I didn't vote for him, as a person he does give off a rather amiable, slightly goofy, low key (ha ha) vibe, sort of "Hey, can you believe I'm the prime minister of this country?"

And I know it's not Mr. Key's fault I just kept thinking of this guy the entire time he was on stage:

Return of the Visitors, Jay Bennett and The Hobbit

Winter has clenched its icy fingers around Aotearoa this last week or so and I am cold. Brr.

• I had kind of vaguely heard they were remaking the old "V" TV series from the 1980s, but hadn't realised it was actually really happening until I saw this trailer for it. "V" was a great '80s nostalgia kick for me -- I remember being horrified out of my wits by the original miniseries and its sequel, despite the cheesy special effects and some rather dire acting. Still, you had Marc "I Am The Beastmaster" Singer, Michael "I Will Kill You My Pinky Finger" Ironside and Jane Badler, who didn't look half bad in a red Nazi-symbolic jumpsuit. And the metaphors, ham-handed as they were, mean the show holds up decently well today. (The ongoing TV series was less good, but I was hooked on it even as it descended into silliness and makeup so cheap that even a 13-year-old noted it.) Anyway, this new series looks fairly promising, certainly better special effects, although I wonder how much "new" it will bring to the table. Will it just repeat the original or will it be a radical re-invention like "Battlestar Galactica"? I quite like Elizabeth Mitchell from "Lost" and am pleased to see her on the cast. Hopefully we'll see it in New Zealand by 2012 or so.

• Rest in peace, Ex-Wilco member Jay Bennett. Bennett contributed a heck of a lot to the distinctive psychedelic quasi-country sound of the band's "Being There" and "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" albums, and his death at just 45 is pretty shocking. The headstrong Bennett clashed a lot with Wilco leader Jeff Tweedy, as recounted in the excellent documentary "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart," and it sounds like he had a lot of personal issues consuming his life after he left the band in 2001. Wilco has continued to prosper and impress, but I'm sad Bennett never quite broke through as a solo artist.

• Mexican director Guillermo del Toro is going all New Zealand as he gets ready to film 2011's "Hobbit" prequels to "Lord of the Rings." I can't wait for these -- if Peter Jackson couldn't do it, I can imagine no other director than the singularly mysterious del Toro to take his place.

This week in an assortment of random things...

This week in television shows: We've finally gotten the HBO TV series "True Blood" on the air down here, starring New Zealand's very own Oscar-winning Anna Paquin, whom I must say has, er, filled out since "The Piano." I've only seen two episodes so far but I rather dig this new spin on the vampire mythology by "Six Feet Under" creator Alan Ball. Brief synopsis: thanks to the invention of a "blood substitute" drink, vamps have come out of the closet and are trying to integrate into human society, and "True Blood" focuses on one small Louisiana town's reaction to the vampires in their midst. Paquin is quite good, doing a decent Southern accent, and I like the way the very adults-only show straddles bloody Gothic camp and psychological depth. The satire of other minority movements is great ("God hates fangs" reads one sign). It really captures the relaxed, sultry yet tense feeling of the American South without descending into caricature. (The South is frequently larger than life, and "True Blood" is honest there.)

This week in upcoming cool music: Did I mention back when I saw them in January with Neil Finn that it turns out Wilco has recorded much of their upcoming new album down here in New Zealand? Actually just up the beach not too far from where the family bach is. I'm eager to hear how the land of the long white cloud has influenced Chicago's finest. One of my favorite bands and one of my favorite places = better than peanut butter and chocolate. Come on, June!

This week in music I've never heard before: I finally got around to checking out some of the famous Captain Beefheart, and good god the man is like Tom Waits' alcoholic eccentric older uncle or something. Madness but kind of compelling as well in a clattering fashion. Good for those 4.30am drives into work when my head is not awake yet. Urg.

This week in sad media cutbacks: Blender magazine folded, and with it went my last remaining US magazine subscription (I had a really good deal and did like a 5-year renewal long before we emigrated). But the magazine had really fallen off from its peak several years back, getting increasingly slim and trashy. At one point, though, it was quite a good music magazine with a nice cross-section of coverage (you might find Jay-Z, Metallica, T. Rex and Pavement all in the same issue), some snarky yet intelligent articles and some nice reviews. It was trying to be a kind of US answer to far superior UK mags like Q, Mojo and Uncut I think. But as sales slipped they tried to sex it up and dumb it down and so they died. The last year or so featured an increasing amount of near-naked non-talents on the cover, so I can't say I'll miss it as it is now, but it's a shame few US magazines can break the dull Rolling Stone/Spin monopoly of coverage.

This week in media voices who actually have something to say: I rather like Time magazine's Joe Klein, who perfectly captures the one-crisis-after-another-hysteria "Americans are outraged" meme of the week: "If you want to be angry about something, get pissed at a media culture that goes berserk about bonuses one week and forgets all about them the next." A whole bunch of journalists repeating something over and over doesn't always make it true. Another nice piece of sane perspective against hyperbole comes from NZ Herald writer Paul Thomas. Now, if you want true "outrage," go see how politics are typically conducted in places like Zimbabwe, Thailand or East Timor. The gap in the journo-sphere's perspective-less view of the Obama administration (he's up! he's down! he's all around!) contrasts mightily with the view of most average Americans I know whose ability to parse a thought can actually extend beyond one news cycle. Or as Obama put it himself, "One day I'm a genius, one day I'm a bum." A presidency is not made in weeks.

This week in frustration: Still nearly two weeks till my holiday from work.

Battlestar Galactica: Then and Now

So I've been on a mad binge lately. It's not the vodka, pills or the crack, but the Battlestar. "Battlestar Galactica," that is.

After meaning to get around to watching the modern "reinvention" of the kinda goofy '70s sci-fi show for a few years now, we finally dug in and did it. And yeah, as with most things I discover long after the fact, I can't believe I waited so long to see it -- we didn't have the cable station it was on when we lived in the US, and kinda like "Buffy The Vampire Slayer," after a while it all seemed rather daunting to take on. In a way, though, it's great to wait until several seasons of the show are out on DVD and have a binge.

But boy, what a great TV series this is -- we've torn through Series 1 and 2 on DVD and are just starting Series 3, while simultaneously watching Series 4 as it airs on TV down here. We dream of Cylons.

I'd been toying with some sweeping, massively impressive and insightful blog take on "Battlestar Galactica" for a couple weeks now, but the thing is there's so danged much talk out there already that I don't know if I have a lot new to add.

But one of the things that had stalled me from checking out the reimagined "Galactica" is that I was actually quite a big childhood fan of the original series, even if I know in my heart of hearts it wasn't actually all that good. Still, there was a spunky, cowboyish charm to the tales of Starbuck, Apollo and Adama back in the disco era, and when you're 8 or 9 years old you don't care about the rather wooden acting, cheap, recycled special effects (how many times did they reuse the Viper flight sequences?) and silly plots. The basic idea of "Galactica" was quite interesting, and the Cylons, firefighter boots and all, were spooky-cool villains. I didn't know if I wanted to see a grim and gritty new series reinvent the wheel. But even at age 9, I could see a lot of wasted potential in the old "Battlestar Galactica" -- the only episode I really remember as special was the bizarre "Galactica 80" one where Starbuck and a Cylon end up shipwrecked and become bestest buddies.

In contrast, the new "Galactica" fully embraces the germ of a good idea at the concept of the series and explores it in fascinating new ways. Mankind nearly wiped out by the mechanical Cylons, on the run and searching for the mythical planet "Earth" -- check. 1970s "Galactica" pretty much used that plot as an excuse for frothy sub-"Star Wars" adventures. 2000s "Galactica" grabs at the cold horror of mass extinction and doesn't flinch.

Just a few of the things I, as a '70s "Galactica" fanboy, appreciate about the new series to date:

* The conflict between a military force and a civilian government in times of war is grist for great material. There's a lot of subtle (and some not subtle) takes on the "War on Terror" and the Bush administration in the ways we see the cold calculus a struggling mankind applies in dealing with an implacable foe. Moral dilemmas are commonplace and rarely neatly sewed up.

• The Cylons are far more interesting than the robot army of the original series, with their humanoid mimicking, creepy mythology and endless conspiracies they generate. "Galactica" questions what it is to be human, what our identity really means, and how we ever know who we really are.

• Space as a setting in the series is grey, mechanical and seemingly devoid of any non-human or Cylon life. The ships are creaky, full of old-fashioned walkie-talkie communicators, munitions instead of lasers and none of the "Star Trek" trappings we associate with science fiction. It's a lived-in reality that reminds me a bit of how Joss Whedon's great "Firefly" series portrayed space.

• The acting is uniformly superior, with the excellent Edward James Olmos as Admiral Adama, Mary McDonnell as President Roslin and Katee Sackhoff as the female version of Starbuck. But the best is the wonderful James Callis as Dr. Gaius Baltar, a character who was a rather one-note sniveling traitor in the original series but who has been rethought as the series' conscience, villain and failed hero all in one. Baltar's weaknesses, machinations and occasional moments of heroism make for a great character, and Callis is superb at reflecting his self-loathing and greed. And how cool is it to see Richard Hatch, Apollo of the old series, as the scheming Tom Zarek?

"Battlestar Galactica" is a bleak, often staggeringly dark series (there are some episodes so unrelenting it's hard to get through), but exceedingly well done for all that. I can't wait to finish Series 3 and 4 and see where the tale ends up, and I imagine I'll have more to say along the way.

Year in Review wrap-up: Movies, TV and Comics a-go-go

Right -- after about two weeks into the new year, you really can't get away with "Year in Review" posts much more. So let me quickly zip over my thoughts on 2008 in movies, TV and comics (previous, longer posts on Books and Music already done).

MOVIES
I'm really loathe to do a "Top 10" movies list when I usually only get to the theater 5-6 times a year anyway, and a great many of the year-end Oscar bait movies don't make it here to New Zealand for months. So I haven't seen many of the movies that would likely end up on an eventual top 10 of 2008 list. I did watch a ton o' movies, but they were like, old and stuff. That said, movies I did like? Well, I'm a comics blogger geek, and this seemed like a pretty good year for superheroes on screen -- "The Dark Knight" and "Iron Man" made for a heck of a tag team, of course. I actually saw Dark Knight in the theatres twice which I never do anymore. While I do have a tendency to rebel a bit against the BEST MOVIE EVAR!! hype you see online, I have to admit it's one heck of an entertainment, Heath Ledger was masterful, and it's the best darn Batman movie since Batman fought off sharks with bat-shark repellent spray. (What? I love Adam West.)

I also really liked Hellboy II and enjoyed the underrated Incredible Hulk. (Wanted, though, might have looked pretty and been brainlessly fun, but it bore about as much resemblance to the comic as my left shoe.) In non-big event type movies, other films I really dug that came out in 2008 were The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (probably my current pick for Best Picture) and Tropic Thunder. Guess I'll have to wait and see if Milk, Frost/Nixon and Slumdog Millionaire make it down here eventually to catch up!

TV
No contest, really -- Doctor Who was my favorite show of the year, with Lost and Torchwood a close second. And, er, well, that's actually just about all the TV shows we watch -- I try to catch the hilarious 30 Rock when it airs down here, but that's about it.

I know some quibbled but I really liked the latest Doctor Who series, particularly the apocalyptic everything-and-the-Dalek sink finale. Catherine Tate made a very entertaining companion, although I'm not a fan of her final fate. Like most, I'm not quite sure about the new guy -- I think a black doctor would've been really cool, but hey, let's see where they go with Mr Matt Smith in 2010. Just hope he changes that emo hair.

COMICS
I finally became disenchanted (I know, I should've years ago) with the endless big-event hype by Marvel and DC. Sadly, the hefty price of comics here and the small market makes finding much in the "alternative" comix scene a real chore. So I'm barely in the art comix market anymore, and am starting to get hardcore about dropping the superhero stuff if they don't amuse me. Marvel's Secret Invasion was particularly annoying -- Brian Michael Bendis can't write endings to save his life, just leaping from event to event. The quirks that were fetching to me in his earlier work on Powers and Alias have generally become obnoxious cliches, and the ending of Secret Invasion -- leading into yet ANOTHER crossover -- was the final straw.

Still, there's good stuff out there -- my favorite books this year would include Criminal (the nifty Ed Brubaker/Sean Phillips crime noir which I'd probably pick as my favorite ongoing series this year), All-Star Superman, Daredevil, Ultimate Spider-Man (my sole remaining Bendis book), The Boys, Hellboy: The Crooked Man (with superbly eerie Richard Corben art), Omega The Unknown, and a rejuvenated Amazing Spider-Man. While it's not quite perfect, the thrice-a-month schedule has resulted in more consistently good Spidey stories than we've seen in years, with some real gems (anything drawn by Pablo Rivera, the return of the indomitable John Romita Jr., and I'm finally enjoying the return of Norman Osborn as a character). Biggest comics letdown: Ambush Bug: Year None. We waited nearly 20 years for this? Sigh. You can't go home again.

* As we wrap up 2008 for good, let me throw in a plug for the nifty Hype Machine which compiled 774 bloggers including yours truly into the mega master list of blogging album picks!

The Buffy-A-Thon: Season 7, the grand finale

Enough with the grim reality, how about a little vampire action? In recent weeks, the wife and I finally wrapped up our silly goal of watching every single episode of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer." Now, the final report on the final season!

We actually felt a little choked up, having come to the grand end run of 144 hours (egad!) of Buffy goodness, even since my idle plan nearly 3 years ago to start watching the entire series from beginning to end. It wasn't some enormous goal, but rather a mild dare -- I'd always been curious to check out "Buffy," most of the TV shows on the air are crap anyway, so why not?

Many times we wondered, how did we not watch this while it was on the air? Some of the time I was moving around country scraping by into new jobs, and TV watching wasn't really a priority; and for several years, we lived up in the mountains and didn't get UPN or WB where "Buffy" was aired. And finally at some point the "Buffy" mythology just seemed so daunting and elaborate to the uninitiated that it didn't seem worth trying to dive in mid-stream. But y'know, I'm glad we consumed the show on DVD season by season -- I can't imagine having to wait a whole week between episodes!

So, Season 7. This felt like a final season, in ways both good and bad. There was a constant sense of momentum, a sense of tying up loose ends; but there was also a bit of creative bankruptcy, a sense that the show was used up. Show creator Joss Whedon's absence after Season 5 is still felt; the dialogue lacks a bit of punch and the humour is played down in favour of more angst. While the army of new young slayer potentials is a pretty cool idea, it ends up with a huge slew of new characters added to the show and a bit of overcrowding. The battle against The First ends up being a big circle back to the series' very first year, and the struggle against the demon-creating Hellmouth. There were a couple points where I felt like, OK, enough with the build-up to a battle against impossible odds, we've seen this before. The season was very focused, but sometimes a bit predictable, too.

Still, I quite enjoyed the battle with the "Big Bad" this season, the incorporeal sum of all evil "The First." It's unusual for a Buffy villain as it has no physical form, instead appearing in a variety of guises as dead former cast members or as Buffy herself (who's died a few times of course herself). It all feels like quite a war, and there's casualties galore (many red-shirt 'potential' slayers, the wounding of Xander, the shocking death of a cast member in the finale, even poor Sunnydale itself). While Season 7 isn't the show's finest overall (I think I might go with Season 4), it's still got plenty to recommend it.

I'm glad to have finally seen "Buffy" and enjoyed the heck out of it. What next? At some point I might check in on the "Buffy Season 8" comic book followup which is quite groovy, but as for TV? The spin-off "Angel"? The highly acclaimed "Battlestar: Galactica" reboot maybe, which I still haven't seen? (I'm an absurd fan of the kitschy original I have to admit). "Veronica Mars" as Rob keeps telling me? Perhaps it's time to finally check out "Dancing With The Stars." Or not.

Best episode: "Dirty Girls," the first of the series of episodes winding up the series. Why? Because Nathan Fillion is thirty kinds of awesome, and his introduction as the southern-fried preacher/serial killer/super-demon Caleb juiced up the entire season. The First was a nifty psychological villain, but Caleb provided the slinky physical menace Buffy needs. Fillion is best known as a good guy in "Firefly" or "Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog," but here he's an out-and-out monster, and great at it. There's a real sense anything can happen when Caleb's on screen, and the episode that introduces him is a classic.

The Buffy-A-Thon: Season 6

In the home stretch now! Hard to believe when I started this way back when and the goal of watching every single episode of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" seemed yes, highly ambitious indeed. (Some people climb mountains, some people run marathons, some people watch a hell of a lot of TV shows about vampires.) Now there's just one season left to go – what will fill the aching hole in my life? I'll have to take up yoga again or something.

Anyhoo ...Season 6. There's something about this season that's a bit hard to put my finger on, but it's a little less confident than previous seasons. This was the first one without creator Joss Whedon running the show, and maybe that's it. While it's almost always entertaining, there's a sense sometimes that the characters aren't acting "realistic," such as with Anya and Xander's on-and-off wedding.

The unrelenting darkness of Season 6 is a theme, and it's nicely wrapped up in the entertaining final episodes. I mean, I thought Season 5 was grim, what with Buffy's mother dying and all, but boy, this one piles on the misery. Willow's journey this season from hero to villain is well foreshadowed (occasionally a bit ham-handedly) and ends in suitably apocalyptic fashion. The finally consummated relationship between Buffy and Spike, however, wallows a bit too much in a kind of sadomasochistic glee. Also, Anthony Stewart Head as the upright, paternal Giles is sorely missed for most of the season.

I really enjoyed the recurring geeky villainy of "The Trio," three put-upon super-brains who gradually become a real threat for the slayer and her friends. It's kind of refreshing to see non-demonic enemies and the writers cannily make you underestimate the Trio until it's too late. Warren Mears, in particular, is a nasty portrait of the evil that can fester in an unloved, spiteful nerd. What ultimately happens to Warren pushes the envelope about as far as this series has ever gone.

Best episode: While it's a grim season, it also boasts one of the best and wittiest "Buffy" episodes ever, the all-musical extravaganza "Once More With Feeling." The idea of a musical episode isn't totally unique, but what's impressive about this one is Joss Whedon (who returned to write and direct this gem) uses the gimmick to create some real emotion and revelation about the characters. Conflicts that have been bubbling under come to the forefront, and it doesn't hurt that the melange of musical styles is excellent fun. (And it turns out Anthony Stewart Head and Amber Benson as Tara are actually quite good singers.) A funny, heartfelt and gripping romp on the stage. (And go check out the also quite excellent new Joss Whedon production "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" to see how kooky is it to see musical theater grafted onto the superhero epic.)

The Buffy-A-Thon: Season 5

And so life -- or rather, death -- goes on. In my ongoing project to watch the entire seven seasons of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer," I've wrapped up season 5 and started season 6 – and now I'm getting sad for the inevitable end of the series. But heck, I'm enjoying the ride, and it's a show that's still better than 90% of what's on TV these days.

Season 5 is the transition point from young cool kids to hard adulthood for the Buffy gang. After dabbling in college last year, there's very little of that shown here – by the time Buffy officially drops out, you figure she'd already stopped going months ago.

For Buffy, it's a season of loss – her mother, her boyfriend, and in the end, even her life. But she also gains a mystical sister, whose addition is an odd but ultimately successful moment for the series (while I still have to question a spell so powerful it can magic up a person and her memories for the entire world, heck, it's a show about a vampire slayer, so I let that go).

The theme of this season is family, and what it means for someone whose job is to deal death to demons. Michelle Trachtenberg as Buffy's "sister" Dawn takes a few episodes to get the right vibe, but by season's end I found her believably annoying-slash-vulnerable as a little sister can be. James Marsters' Spike continues to be the most charismatic of the characters, and livens up every scene he's in. He takes the quite implausible notion of a vampire crushing on the Slayer and makes it work.

The tone of this season is hard to get used to, though, as there's less light-heartedness (besides a very amusing battle with Dracula himself in the season opener, and the enjoyably bitchy portrayal of goddess-gone-mad Glorificus, the series' main villain). But it's also, I would argue, the best season in terms of sheer skill – the writing, acting and themes are all at top strength. Perhaps the only drawback is that it's just all so darned dire for Buffy throughout, culminating in her self-sacrifice to save her new sister's life at season's end. A little bit of the goofy pulpy joy to be found in the previous few seasons is gone, but admittedly it's replaced by the confident posture of a series trying to combine horror, kung-fu action, drama and humour in a way few television series have ever done.

Best episode: Speaking of dark – "The Body," where Buffy's mother's sudden death is handled with a shocking, matter-of-fact realism that hits you like a body blow. No sappy sentimental music, just a sense of shock and harrowing loss that's as hard to view as any gory vampire battle might be. In a series where critters die pretty much every 20 minutes, this episode yanks bank the veil to show how shattering one death can truly be. It's easily one of the top "Buffy" episodes ever.

The Buffy-a-thon: Season 4

My god, I'm past the halfway point. As some might recall, since 2006 I've been on a project to watch all seven seasons of the legendary "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" TV series by Joss Whedon, which I foolishly missed out on while it was on the air. I've just wrapped up Season 4, more than halfway through the 144 episodes.

I have to admit, it's a close call, but I think this is the best Buffy season yet, narrowly topping Season 3's swell duels with the Mayor and Faith. It's tight, sexy and funny, with an engaging ongoing storyline that consistently goes in unexpected directions. We get less of the sometimes-forced "monster of the week" episodes that run out of steam.

This season has big changes - Buffy and the gang go to college, Angel's gone, and at long last, the U.S. military apparently notices all the demons and vampires haunting Sunnydale, California, and decides to do something about it – namely, a top-secret Initiative that's capturing demons for some mysterious plan. The Initiative storyline, and Buffy's affair with its lieutenant Riley, drives the season and is a lot of fun. The military's got nothing on the slayer. The grotesque cyborg-demon creation Adam is another excellent "Big Bad" villain for the series, with a laconic cool presence.

To top it all off, Spike joins the cast on a regular basis, with a great plotline about him losing his vampire preying skills (read: impotence) and becoming a begrudging "good guy" (sort of). James Marster's snide and sarcastic Spike is a great addition to a crew that was getting a little too touchy-feely. There's good conflict with the trio of Buffy, Willow and Xander this season, and each character gets a moment to shine. Willow's break-up with Oz and surprising affair with Tara are nicely handled. Only former watcher Giles gets a bit lost this year, not given much to do.

I'd long heard about how good "Buffy" was when it was on, but life and the like got in the way of catching its spell. But it's even better to watch it on DVD in huge gulps, having mostly avoided spoilers. Season 4 shows Joss Whedon and co. at the peak of their powers, and it's a heck of a lot better than most stuff on the tube today.

Best episode: "Hush," the classic "silent" episode where some ultra-creepy demons steal Sunnydale's voices, and Buffy and Riley have to stop things – without saying a word. Lots of plot movement, tremendously freaky foes, and a lot of humour without a line of dialogue.

"Flight Of The Conchords" vs. "Tenacious D"
-- the comedy cage match

So it's funny but one question I've been asked more than any other lately by my American friends is, have you seen "Flight Of The Conchords," the hit HBO TV series about the struggling New Zealander musicians in New York City. Embarassingly, until recently, the answer was no, because the series didn't air in New Zealand until months after it aired in the U.S., and then it aired at like 10.30 at night which is past my bedtime on work nights (blame NZ television, which actually passed on airing the show when offered at first, and will never quite live that down).

But now it's out on DVD here, we bought it and have been laughing our way through the first series. It's hilarious deadpan humor, with what I now recognize as a particularly Kiwi bent to it.

I have to admit, though, before I ever saw "Conchords" I was a bit put off by it, because it sounded startlingly familiar to another short TV series, which also just happened to be on HBO, about a two-man band struggling for success -- Jack Black and Kyle Gass' "Tenacious D," of course. And they are quite similar, no doubt about it, right down to having a single obsessed fan of each band. But then again, the theme itself is hardly new – mock comedy about fake bands goes back at least to "The Monkees" that I can think of.

And what's interesting having seen both "D" and "Conchords" now is the differences between them. They're both quite funny, I think, but in different ways that speak of the cultural humor gap between US and Brit/Kiwi style wit.

"D" is openly surreal and slapstick, over-the-top in the way live-action cartoon character Jack Black specialized in when he was starting out. The D meet Sasquatch, battle the Devil, kick each other's heads off in fights, and play a kind of acoustic heavy metal folk heavy on sexual bragging, yelping and boasting, made all the funnier because they're strumming it along on cheap two-chord guitars. It's a comedy based on excess -- how far will we take this? (The D's semi-successful live-action movie "The Pick of Destiny" tried the same style, only to sputter out a bit when transfered from 10-minute shorts into 90 minutes of film.)

The Conchords on the other hand are particularly Kiwi as they focus in on the idea of the Kiwi man, a stoic "bloke." They play on the image of Kiwis as unknowns in Manhattan (frequently they're mistaken for Australians or English), and Conchords Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie are experts at the deadpan, Buster Keaton stoneface non-reaction reaction shot. The duo and their manager Murray are sometimes shown as gullible, easily fleeced and a bit confused by bustling Manhattan. So "Conchords" is simultaneously making fun of Kiwis in America while also knowingly nudging New Zealand in the side, saying "ah, this is what they think we're like, eh?" It's double-edged humour that's a fair bit subtler than Tenacious D, and the exotic Kiwi factor pays well to Americans who don't know much about this country on the other side of the world.

The Conchords' music is also a fair bit different than Tenacious D -- the songs are almost always in elaborate music video-style fantasy sequences, and tunes like "If You're Into It" and "Business Time" kind of parody hot R&B and indie pop but are also technically quite proficient music, with Jemaine's swooping bass delivery and Bret's velvety croon. The music is more varied than the D's, which possibly explains why the Conchords' first CD "The Distant Future" just grabbed a Grammy Award.

I think "Tenacious D" is about being big and refusing to acknowledge you're small, while "Flight Of The Conchords" is about being small and dreaming of being big. What that says about the two nations I'll leave to deeper thinkers than I! I tell you, though, now that I'm a fan of both shows, what I wouldn't give to see some kind of "Tenacious D"/"Flight of the Conchords" crossover, with a musical duel and/or cage fight to the death to see who the top parody folk duo in the world really is.

Solace in the sickness

...Urgh, I say, urgh. Stumbling back to normalcy after a wicked case of the dreaded lurgy that I caught from the boy, leaving me a fetal mess for several days. I didn't leave the house for about 60 hours, so I guess I got a mini vacation. Fortunately I had some things to keep me company in the illness. Nice things to have around when you're sick:

• Cat Power's sultry new disc of covers and et cetera, Jukebox. If there's a sexier singer going these days, I don't wanna hear it. Cat Power's mint juleps-and-summer sweat voice has developed into a powerhouse of song, and right from the get-go, Jukebox envelops you in a warm mood as she takes covers by Hank Williams, Joni Mitchell and more and makes them her own. It gets off on the right foot with a delicious take on Frank Sinatra's "New York" and is fine company on a rainy night.

• The "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" DVD marathon continued merrily into Season 4, and so I'm nearly at the halfway point of my goal to watch the entire series. May I just say, who rocks harder than Spike? No one rocks harder than Spike, that's who. And the all-silent episode "Hush" may just be in the contention for the single best (and creepiest) episode of "Buffy" by the time I finish the whole friggin' series, in 2011...

• Nothing better than reading old comic books when you're sick, and digging out my copies of the classic 1950s EC Comics collections is the way to go. Specifically, I spent much time re-reading the short-lived series "Piracy," which pretty much mined the genre for all it's worth and is a heck of a lot better than Johnny Depp running around fighting squids. Fantastic art by Wally Wood and company, and plentiful use of keelhauling as a plot device. Yarrrrr!

• Why can't you buy a decent canned chicken soup in New Zealand, anyways?